Pictured are the homes of the former McDonald's Quarters in Naples, just north of Central Avenue. It was given the new nickname of Progress Village shortly before it was torn down in the early 1980s.

Daily News file

LaVerne Franklin, former Collier County NAACP president, inside the sanctuary of Bethel AME Church, a historically black church, in Naples. Franklin, originally from Philadelphia, says God's words have given her strength to persevere through the tough times of segregation and inequality.

File

It gets better. That's what minorities who have lived in Collier County said about race relations here.

Better, but not great.

"We were in a deep hole. We are gradually coming out of it," said Willie Anthony, a River Park resident who has lived in Naples since the 1950s. "I think like most small towns, the expectations are on a minuscule level."

Anthony was almost 10 when his family moved from Alabama to Naples.

"It was a segregated city," he said. "McDonald's Quarters was just being built, but this was still the black neighborhood."

McDonald's Quarters was a white-owned, shantytown slum that was, for a time, the only housing available to blacks, who could not buy land in Naples, even if they had the money. It would be torn down in the 1980s, but not after decades-long complaints from city leaders about code violations that were ignored and allowed to continue.

"I'd never seen a community like McDonald's Quarters. I knew what a debilitating effect that place must have on the children going to school," said Herb Cambridge, who came to Naples to help open its first black high school, as told by Maria Stone in her book "We Also Came - Black People of Collier County." "Number one, the expectations people held for children who came out of situations like that would be terrible."

Anthony said the first time he realized he was rebuffed was when the Dairy Queen was built on U.S. 41. In the book "We Also Came," Anthony said the water fountain was for whites only and blacks had to get their ice cream from a window on the side of the building.

Anthony said when Collier County became more integrated, many blacks moved out of the area, but he chose to stay.

"I don't want to run from my past," he said. "This is my home."

Anthony said his neighborhood is still very much "a city within in a city." It could be illustrated in experiences like those that happened on April 28, 2001, when a white Naples police officer shot and killed black River Park resident Marvin Harris, 21. After the shooting, River Park residents and blacks from Collier and surrounding counties accused the police of mistreatment.

"It's high time the city accepts us as part of them, even with all of our warts," he said. "They're just warts. We're not lepers."

Walter Hamilton, 61, and his wife, Betty, moved to Naples in 1970 to be closer to Betty's mother. They moved into McDonald's Quarters where they lived for four years.

Hamilton admits McDonald's Quarters was "not the nicest of places," but he said the new couple liked living there.

"It was like leaving home and coming home," Hamilton said. "Everyone here was very friendly. It's been a blessing to me and my family."

Hamilton and his wife joined the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in River Park, where Hamilton became a deacon.

"It was a small church then," he said. "Around 1973, it was renovated to what it is now."

In 1979, Hamilton and his family moved to Golden Gate City, where they still live.

"I used to go out and fish out here in the canals," he said. "It was just woods then. But this is right where I wanted to be. The funny thing is, once we bought the house, I fished less than when we lived in town."

Hamilton, who was a concrete finisher until he retired for health reasons in 2005, said he saw progress as he saw black families leave the River Park area and move into those areas like Pelican Bay, where he had done work.

"At first, blacks didn't have a big area to stretch out," he said. "But that changed."

LaVerne Franklin, past NAACP of Collier County president, said minorities are not given enough recognition in the community.

"It's a disservice," she said. "Our contributions are not shown. We are not recognized."

Franklin became active with the black community after moving to Naples from Philadelphia, where she was a retired Army warrant officer and special education teacher. In addition to serving as NAACP president, she worked with Yes Kids, a Conservancy program at Lake Park Elementary School and was a trustee at the NCH Healthcare System.

"I saw a need. I didn't just want to be a retiree. God gave me ways to contribute," she said.

When Franklin moved to Naples, one of the first things she undertook was bringing the Black Entertainment Television (BET) channel to Naples.

"No one thought it was needed because they thought people would not watch it," she said. "But we had petitions of thousands of people."

Franklin recalls fights with county officials to name County Road 951, now Collier Boulevard, and several schools, including Sabal Palm Elementary School, after Dr. Martin Luther King.

"We had people threatening to burn the school down," Franklin said, shaking her head. "There's a lot of racism here."

Eventually, county officials compromised, naming the school district's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Administrative Center and naming the building in the Collier government complex where the Supervisor of Elections Office is located the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Building.

Anthony said things like not showing President Barack Obama's speech in public schools furthers the impression that blacks are not respected. Collier County public schools did not show the president's education pep talk live last year, but the district did give teachers the opportunity to show it to their students at a later date and gave parents the chance to have their students "opt-out" of the speech.

"It's a travesty," he said. "And it has nothing to do with politics. It sends a bad message to black kids. And it sends a bad message to white kids."Anthony said he believes one of the worst things to happen in Collier County was the closing of the Carver School. He said following integration, many black students had the feeling that the teachers didn't want them to be there.

"A lot of black teachers lost their jobs," he said. "We had to put our formative years in white folks' hands. We had to put our formative years in the hands of people who didn't want it."

Anna Mae Perry, known as Mother Perry, said in "We Also Came" that many black people wanted her to show prejudice in reverse, but she couldn't.

"I never did do it when I was delivering white babies," she said. "I didn't ever think about it. In my heart, I had Jesus, and I couldn't mistreat nobody for what was done back there years ago."

Still, Anderson doesn't absolve minorities.

"We need to be vigilant in getting the support we need to sustain our neighborhood," he said. "Someone has to say this is not going to be. ... It ain't what we say, it's what we do."

Franklin agreed that their voices need to be heard. And she is still fighting, even contacting a company bringing a World War II exhibit to Naples to find out why there was no mention of the Tuskegee Airmen in their program.